ISLAMABAD, March 17, 2014: The Balochistan Wild Life Protection, Preservation and Management Bill, 2014 was introduced in Balochistan Assembly during first sitting of its eighth session on Monday, says Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Daily Factsheet based on direct observation of the proceedings.

Provincial minister for Law moved the bill on behalf of provincial minister for Forest. Eight of 20 starred questions were taken up while six were responded to by the relevant ministers. No supplementary question was asked by the lawmakers.

Raised by lawmakers of PkMAP and PML-N, the House took up two adjournment motions (AMs) related to unannounced load shedding and misuse of transformer in Muslim Bagh, District Pishin, while the one regarding firing by unknown motorcyclists on a car in Dhadar, District Bolan, could not be debated upon.

Lawmakers spoke on four points of order, consuming 34 minutes of the proceedings.

Following are some key observations of the proceedings:

Members’ Participation in House Proceedings

• The Balochistan Assembly met for two hours and 15 minutes.
• The sitting started at 1617 hours against the scheduled time of 1530 hours, witnessing a delay of 47 minutes.
• Forty-eight members were present at the outset while 39 were there at the adjournment of the sitting.
• The Speaker chaired the entire sitting.
• The Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition were present during the entire sitting.
• The parliamentary leaders of PML, PkMAP, NP, MWM, PML-N, JUI-F and ANP were present.
• Six members applied for leave.
• Two minority members were present during the sitting.

Output

• The Balochistan Wild Life Protection, Preservation and Management Bill, 2014 was introduced in Balochistan Assembly.

Representation and Responsiveness

• Eight of 20 starred questions were taken up while six were responded to by the relevant ministers. No supplementary question was asked by the lawmakers.
• The House took up two adjournment motions (AMs) related to unannounced load shedding, misuse of transformer in Muslim Bagh, District Pishin, while the one regarding firing by unknown motorcyclists on a car in Dhadar, District Bolan, could not be debated upon.

Order and Institutionalization

• Lawmakers spoke on four points of order, consuming 34 minutes of the proceedings.

Transparency

• ‘Orders of the Day’ was available to the legislators, observers and others.
• Information on legislators’ attendance was not available to the observers and the public.

The Daily Factsheet is based on direct observation of Balochistan Assembly proceedings conducted by Center for Peace and Development (CPD), a Member organization of FAFEN.